Why BARAHA mattu NUDI FONTS are not in Open Source

VASU of BARAHA has STOLEN IPR from AKRUTHI Fonts to make BARAHA Fonts. AKRUTHI Fonts were on the market for $25. VASU of BARAHA has made AKRUTHI Fonts to loose it’s business.

VASU by giving it FREE to KANNADIGAS to download BARAHA Fonts, who are in USA, UK, AUSTRALIA, SINGAPORE, AFRICA, CANADA, EUROPE, UAE and all over the world has made a BLUNDER. This has created a tremendous difficulty for other KANNADA SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS to sell their products in these countries and making them to go out of BUSINESS. Kannadigas in these countries could have afforded to pay and buy KANNADA FONTS.

If VASU’s INTENTION as per his email dated 2004 is to keep it for his family use, then it would have been a different story. Nothing would have happened like this for KANNADA SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT “KSD”.

We all need to think, was it necessary for VASU to offer a STOLEN BARAHA FONTS for FREE DOWNLOAD to KANNADIGAS in these countries ?? and DESTROYING the MARKET for KANNADA Fonts and KANNADA SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT.

VASU is PRIMARILY responsible for all the problems KANNADA SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT is facing TODAY.The reason for this statement is BARAHA Fonts has been copied into NUDI Fonts by KGP. Pirated NUDI Fonts has been sold to Govt. of Karnataka by KGP/KAGAPA. KGP/KAGAPA has forced the GoK to make NUDI Fonts compulsory to use in all departments. The other Kannada fonts developers could not sell anything to GoK Departments.

MAJORITY (90%) of BUSINESS for KANANDA Fonts and KANANDA SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT comes from Govt. of Karnataka, District levels, Taluk Levels, Panchayat Levels and eGovernance of GoK.

VASU has allowed Srinatha Shastry, Narasimha Murthy and Dr. Panditharadhya of Kannada Ganaka Parishat “KGP” to COPY BARAHA Fonts and name it NUDI Fonts and sell NUDI Fonts to Govt. of Karnataka “GoK”. So GoK is using STOLEN PROPERTY and forcing all Departments to use NUDI FONTS. This made other KANNADA SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS to GO OUT of BUSINESS.

VASU of BARAHA Fonts by offering the BARAHA Fonts FREE for DOWNLOAD to KANNANDIGAS has collected FUNDS from these KANNADIGAS in BANGALORE in the name of a TRUST.

By doing this VASU of BARAHA has DESTROYED the KANNADA SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT.

VASU of BARAHA has made other KANNADA SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS to GO OUT of BUSINESS.

GoK is not even following it’s own G. O. and KANNADA STANDARDS that are in the books of GoK.

If NUDI Fonts is GoK Property, THEN GoK need to put NUDI FONTS into OPEN SOURCE, so that more Kannada Software Development can take place with the help of OPEN SOURCE enthusiast’s.

There are numerous write up’s on this issue of BARAHA and NUDI Fonts. Some of you have already read those.

NEXT question, we all need to think is,

If BARAHA and NUDI Fonts are being offered FREE like this to KANNADIGAS,

Kannadigas do not support BLINDLY Mr. Sheshadri Vasu just because he gave FREE DOWLOADS of BARAHA SOFTWARE to NRI KANNADIGAS which was copied from AKRUTHI FONTS. Mr. Sheshadri VASU himself has written letter to owner of AKRUTHI Fonts Mr. S. K. Anand.

WAKE up KANNADIGAS:: Srinatha Sastry, Narasimha Murthy, Pandithradhya, KAGAPA, KGP, Pirated Nudi Fonts, Pirated BARAHA Fonts are RESPONSIBLE for DESTROYED and DESTROYING the KANNADA SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT in Karnataka State. Govt. of Karnataka need to WAKE UP on this ISSUE !!

KANNADIGAS need to look at what effect BARAHA and NUDI fonts had in Kannada Software Development in Karnataka State and to make KANNADA to be adopted by all Departments in GOK.

Kannadigas do not support BLINDLY Mr. Sheshadri Vasu just because he gave FREE DOWLOADS of BARAHA SOFTWARE to NRI KANNADIGAS which was copied from AKRUTHI FONTS. Later these BARAHA FONTS were used in NUDI FONTS and solt by KAGAPA /KGP to Govt. of KARNATAKA for 30 LAKHS.

Mr. Sheshadri Vasu himself has written letter to owner of AKRUTHI Fonts Mr. S. K. Anand.

Mr. Sheshadri Vasu has got lots of benefits out of this IPR VIOLATION.

Mr. Sheshadri Vasu got recognized for this STEALING OF IPR from AKRUTHI FONTS to release his BARAHA FONTS.

Mr. Sheshadri Vasu got honored at several places because of this STOLEN BARAHA FONTS released by him.

KANNADIGAS need to look at what effect BARAHA and NUDI fonts had in Kannada Software Development in Karnataka State and to make KANNADA to be adopted by all Departments in GOK.

Please look at where over all KANNADA LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT due to this !!

KANNADIGAS need to look at what is the STATUS of KANNADA SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT. What effect this BARAHA FONTS and NUDI FONTS has on KANNADA SOFTWARE DEVEOPMENT.

Read the following which is written by Dr. U. B. Pavanaja.

Birth of Baraha

I had put up Kannada’s first web-site called Vishva Kannada during Dec. 1996 with the support of S K Anand of Cyberscape. Dynamic font technology was not being used by Vishva Kannada at that time. Akruti fonts were given for download at the web-site. Users have to download the font, install it in their PC and then they could read the Vishva Kannada web-site in Kannada. Sometimes in the first half of 1997, I got an email from Sheshadri Vasu who was at USA. In that mail he appreciated Vishva Kannada. He added that it takes a long time to copy characters through CharMap (an utility present in Windows to copy a glyph of a font into any application) and make a Kannada sentence. I explained him how to type in Kannada using the keyboard driver which has to be bought from Cyberscape. I gave the contact details of S K Anand and the approximate price of the software also. Then there was no mail from Vasu for some time. (Recently, during his visit to India in June 2004, Vasu wrote an article for Vijaya Karnataka, wherein he mentioned the discussions he had with me about the relation between font and keyboard driver). One day I got an email from Vasu saying that he has made a software called Baraha that can be used as an editor for Kannada. He wrote that he wanted to give this software free to everyone. The version sent to me was a beta version. He had actually written an editor for the font he downloaded from the web. I asked him about the copyright of the font. He had not thought anything about that. I explained to him the he need to take the permission of S K Anand of Cyberscape to use Akruti fonts in his software. He included the Kan Ballal font which was given to read Udayavani web-site with the first release of Baraha, which was given to some select friends only. Later on he changed the ASCII values of the glyphs of Akruti font and released the Baraha package officially. His idea was that just by changing the ASCII values of the glyphs, his font becomes different from Akruti font. But morally, ethically and legally, this amounts to violation of intellectual property rights. After a long gap of six years, recently (2004), Vasu admitted that he used the glyphs from Akruti fonts, in a mail to S K Anand.

Fonts used in Nudi

Now let me discuss the about the fonts bundled with Nudi. Nudi was initially thought as a testing software. This was made into a package later on. Myself and Harsha (the programmer who did the coding for Nudi) were opposing the release of Nudi without our own professional fonts. Making a font is an elaborate process. Artists have to draw each character (glyph) on paper, they have to be scanned, digitized, hinted, etc. It takes months for each font. C V Srinatha Sasthry (CVSS), Chief Secretary, Kannada Ganaka Parishat (KGP), told me that he got the font made from someone before submitting the final package to GoK. In one of the executive committee meeting S K Anand and myself questioned CVSS about who made the fonts, how much was paid to him, etc. G N Narsimha Murthy (GNNM), Secretary, KGP, gave a reply that someone at Koppa made the fonts. I mentioned that KGP should have the complete record of making of the fonts like original drawings by the artist, first raw digitized data, the final font, etc. GNNM promised to get all these from Koppa and show to us in the next meeting. He never bothered to do that.

I came to know about the entire story about fonts much much later. Initially I used to believe the statements of CVSS about the fonts. But it took almost 2 years for me to accidentally discover the truth. While experimenting with opentype font creation, I was studying the glyphs of all Kannada fonts. When I opened Baraha, Akruti and Nudi fonts in a font editing software, I found that they all have the same glyph sets, even though their ASCII values are different. As Sathyanarayana has detailed in his write-up, the glyphs from Akruti fonts were used in the first version of Baraha, which was then used in the first version of Nudi. As per my knowledge CVSS got this conversion of font encodings done by someone here at Bangalore itself. The fonts were not made from scratch at Koppa. This is clear violation of intellectual property rights. I had a strong and heated argument with CVSS and GNNM about one or two months before the elections to the executive committee of KGP. I blasted CVSS for misleading me and telling lies to me that the fonts were developed at Koppa. CVSS and GNNM have told lies to me and cheated GoK by supplying them with pirated fonts. Definitely my position became very awkward that I being the mentor and the person in charge of Nudi in the initial stages was not informed of these backdoor activities by CVSS. I fired both CVSS and GNNM left and right. At that time GNNM even challenged me to prove these in the court along with S K Anand who had already threatened to sue KGP for violation of intellectual property rights.

Conclusion and request

Baraha has copied and used one font from Akruti software. This font is one of the many fonts bundled with current version of Nudi.

I have written everything that I know about the font issues pertaining to Akruti, Baraha and Nudi. My intention is to bring out the truth, however bitter it is. I have no personal animosity with anyone whose name appears in this write-up. Please read this objectively and subjectively. That is, do a vasthunistha (objective) reading rather than a vyakthinishta (subjective) reading.

Thanks for your patience and time.

Dr. U. B. Pavanaja

___________________________________

WAKE up KANNADIGAS:: We all need to stand for the TRUTH !!

Let us act in UNITY to bring KANNADA SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT in KARNATAKA STATE.

LET US FIGHT FOR KANNADA TO BE ADMINISTRATIVE LANGUAGE – not just LIP Service by Gok and others.

Why Govt. of Karnataka “GOK” has not taken any action against KAGAPA, KGP,Pirated NUDI Fonts or INDIVIDUALS RESPONSIBLE for SELLING PIRATED NUDI FONTS to Govt. of Karnataka.

Why GOK is listening to KAGAPA / KGP, when GOK knows that KAGAPA as an entity has not even developed any KANNADA FONTS ?

Why GOK is not using SRG Systems and APPLESOFT, who have DEVELOPED KANNADA FONTS and other programs in KANNADA ?

__________________________________

NUDI and BARAHA have destroyed the growth of KANNADA.In the name of FREE SOFT WARE BARAHA and FREE WARE NUDI, is jeopardizing the other SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS coming forward and developing more applications in KANNADA.But still some are doing it. it is very hard for them until Govt. of Karnataka removes an order saying that all departments have to use NUDI Fonts.

________________________________________________

Some URL’s for all KANNADIGAS to read and understand what has happened to KANNADA SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT.

E-MAIL CAMPAIGN TO IMPLEMENT MAHISHI REPORThttp://www.starofmysore.com/main.asp?type=news&item=7340Mysore , Sept. 17 (KCU)- An e-mail signature campaign from Kannadigas all over the world has been launched by V. M. Kumaraswamy, founder of e-Kavi, a forum of Kannada lovers from all over the world, to urge the Government to implement the Dr. Sarojini Mahishi Report.